Dangerous
by SelDear
Summary: Never underestimate a woman. Seven men of the Colonies know this only too well.


**Dangerous**

_"Well-behaved women rarely make history."_**  
**

Never underestimate a woman.

Seven men know this only too well.

--

**Leader**

He stands at the President's shoulder and doesn't listen to Zarek's mutterings.

Lee has made his choice, his decision, his bed. He will lie on it and sleep the sleep of a man who did what he knows was right.

She's a dangerous woman, planting seeds of hope, sowing seeds of belief. And although the crop is not what she expected, she will use it and he will stand by her.

He can feel her tension, her terror as she looks at their bowed heads, at the men who see their hope in her. Elosha whispers in her ear, and Lee can guess what is said and grieves for the loss of her illusions. She no longer belongs to herself: she belongs to the people - a symbol, an icon, a hope of future.

Her hand shakes as she reaches out to bless the men, and they look up at her as men touched by the gods.

Gods-touched or not, President Roslin has Lee's admiration. She trusted him with her secrets, gave him an alternative leadership, challenged the absolute authority of his father - and won Lee's loyalty in the bargain. If there are things he would have done differently, Lee is neither Laura Roslin nor the President of the twelve colonies. These decisions are not his to make.

Holding the gun to Tigh's head was his choice.

Fleeing the _Galactica_ was his choice.

She spoke the words, but Lee listened.

And he will follow Laura Roslin into hell if that's what she requires of him.

--

**Flame**

There's an anger about her as she snaps at Sharon, eyes filled with a rage that is impotent for all its passion. But he knows Kara won't break, she never does.

She's a dangerous woman, brave yet brittle, strong yet strung out. It was she who convinced Anders not to shoot them, she who challenged the player and his team to step out beyond what they knew.

Helo isn't a player in this argument - neither is Anders. Necessary intercessors, perhaps, but nothing more. The conflict here is between the two women - the pregnant Cylon and the woman who was captured by them - and all four of them know it.

Kara's need for retaliation is strong. It's in her nature to fight - to lash out. Right now, she wants to lash out against Sharon and the Cylons she represents - the Cylons who captured her, against the destruction of Caprica and the refugees who eke out their lives in the shadow of the Cylons.

She doesn't.

Even as she speaks, he can see the duty she was given by the President outweighs everything else. Even her concern for the people here on Caprica or her hatred of what was done to her in the 'farm' pales beside that hope, trust, and belief.

Kara's going back to Fleet. She was born to it, bred for it, it's her life and her first loyalty.

A flame burns in her, and few things have ever extinguished it.

Helo won't try.

--

**Siren**

Silk material slips down over the curves of satin skin, and the sun glows charmingly over gold flesh.

Once again, Gaius is mesmerised by the sight of her.

She's a dangerous woman, intelligent and beautiful, the whisper in his ear, the voice in his mind. He was caught in her snare long before he ever knew she was a Cylon, long before she offered him his unique salvation.

Watching her smirk out in the sun of a planet that no longer exists except in his mind, Gaius allows himself a moment's wondering: could Shelley Godfrey have been even half as spectacular in her unknown nature?

Like the sirens of old legend, she calls to him, in his blood, but he has neither tether nor wax to stop him from seeking her. And why resist, after all? Gaius has never denied himself anything he wanted, although he hasn't always known quite how to get it.

Satin skin is warm against his cheek, his lips. His own personal siren, his own personal oracle.

One hand slips down through his shirt.

"Gaius?"

"Yes?"

"What are you thinking?" He doesn't know if she knows his mind and is simply asking to make conversation, or if the inner workings of his thoughts truly are indecipherable to her.

"Nothing," he murmurs, lifting his lips to her.

He lets himself be charmed.

--

**Trouble**

The idiot loved her - fell in love with a toaster.

Of course, he wasn't the only one fooled. They all were. That doesn't make it any better.

She's a dangerous woman, a deceiver, a lie sold to men. The woman they thought was one of them - a good officer, reliable, lucky - turned out to be one of the enemy.

Saul pauses at the edge of the viewing room, then moves into the cold grey grille of the prison. Fear is overcome by action, after all, and he won't fear that thing.

She lies on the bed, sleeping. They can keep going better than humans - Saul remembers how Valer-- the toaster was doing better than everyone else during those first sleepless days and nights after the destruction of the colonies - but even they eventually need rest. You can run them down in the end, but it takes time.

Movement catches his eye; nothing more than a shift of someone standing in shadows, but enough.

He turns, catches the eye of Lieutenant Agathon, frowns. Thrace filled them in on the situation between Agathon and the toaster-who-was-Valerii; Agathon believes the thing carries his child. The fool even knows what she is; at least the Chief had the excuse of ignorance.

Saul turns away. He doesn't know what Bill was thinking, bringing that thing back here. Better to have left it to die on Kobol.

Her presence is only going to cause trouble. Saul knows it in his bones.

Toasters are nothing but trouble.

--

**Unexpected**

Men have two instincts when it comes to Cally: protect or take advantage.

Both instincts forget a very present truth: she has her own bite. The rapist on _The Astral Queen_ found that out the hard way. So did Galen Tyrol.

She's a dangerous woman. Most people would never think it to look at her, but she is. Quiet and dutiful, but occasionally surprising.

Cally shooting Sharon - that was unexpected. He's pleased by her loyalty to him; but he can't forget the one glimpse he had of her vengeful, satisfied expression before Sharon's pale, dying face filled his world.

Thirty days in the brig is a light sentence for what Cally did. If Sharon hadn't been...hadn't been what she was then his specialist would be facing court-martial for her actions. As it is...

As it is, Cally saved Sharon from a battery of tests and brutalities.

So Tyrol has mixed feelings about Cally's actions. So do the deck crew. The cat has claws and will use them. Nobody expected that - and as much as the discovery of human cylons, it worries them. Given that this is _Cally_, it's as bad as being savaged by a goldfish.

She acts the same, as though nothing's changed.

And Galen Tyrol watches her, wondering what signals he missed in Cally, just as surely as he denied the things he suspected in Sharon.

She's not going to surprise him again.

--

**Complicit**

Of all the officers in the CIC, Dee was the last one he would have expected to rebel.

Even against Tigh.

She's a dangerous woman, quiet and competent, going about her duty so unobtrusively that it took even Gaeta a few minutes staring at the logs to realise who was making the calls.

It took longer than that for him to decide to confront her - a whole hour off-duty before he went to see her about it. Off-the-record, and without reporting it to Tigh who should have been told the instant everything clicked in Gaeta's mind.

In the end, he let her make him complicit in her plans - in Apollo's plans, and while he still thinks he did the right thing, a fragment of memory teases him.

_People are like steel, not fired clay. Under heat, under pressure, they are more likely to change, adjust, and reform rather than break._

Dee has changed from that event, from the friendship she struck up with Captain Adama in complicity with his plans. Now that they're back on the run again, after the Commander's shooting, after the sojourn on Kobol, she still goes about her duty, but something's changed in her - reformed, remolded.

Or maybe it's his perception of her that's changed.

--

**Weakness**

Every man has his weakness.

His second-in-command has two: the bottle he can't give up and the woman he doesn't want to.

She's a dangerous woman, bitterness in beauty, viciousness and vivacity, passion and pettiness, and the hold she has on her husband.

With Ellen behind him, Saul has no sense of moderation, no sense of the appropriate - she goads him on to his actions. Bill's seen it before, as well as the aftermath.

As the reports come in from the fleet, Bill wonders if the marks of Ellen's goading can be seen in Saul's decisions or if it's just his imagination.

Saul knows Bill's mind when it comes to Ellen. And Bill knows Saul's heart. In much younger days, they might have quarrelled over the matter. With age comes tolerance and acknowledgement that some things will never change. With the destruction of the colonies comes the knowledge that they need every man, woman, and child they have - even the troublesome ones.

He and Ellen are careful acquaintances right now; bound in tenuous alliance through Saul. And if Ellen knows that Bill would rather she were dead, she doesn't let on. Bill certainly doesn't let on that he's aware of Ellen's ambitions.

But for all that, there are moments in the silence of his mind when Bill Adama thinks it wouldn't have been such a terrible thing for Ellen Tigh to have perished on Picon.

----

Never underestimate the influence, power, or strength of a woman.

Seven men know this only too well.

- **fin** -


End file.
